i think i will drive from portugal to lithuania , i woul like to have all the possible information about driving in poland. I m few worried because what i hear its not so good . Anything helps . One person hwrw wrote tha weekend its better to drive in poland because just frigo trucks are allowed. Still like that ?

I seem to remember that the most dangerous road in Europe is in Portugal , somewhere near the tourist resorts on the coast....I don,t think you will find Poland any worse as regards driving...The standard of driving does at times cause problems , and there is no denying the country has a high accident rate , but just take it easy , untill you get used to the way they drive in Poland....Don,t want to scare you , but Lithuania has an even higher accident rate...!

its correct , we have some very dangerous roads unfortunaly and the way of driving didnt got better . Our alternatives are highways and i think in poland there are very few (about 300 km from german border Frankfurt Oder to Warsaw). i heard also about lithuania and i am worried because i go with kids (if we relly go ) . But if trucks dont drive in weekends its a positive thing.

Just found this thread and thought I'd add my questions to it. In Aug/Sep I plan on doing a two week roadtrip by myself to Eastern Europe. Places like Ukraine (Poss Chernobyl), down to Romainia to find that road in the Top Gear episode, Auschwitz perhaps and a few other things and whatever comes inbetween. (I've done Stelvio/Southern France etc a few times already so don't fancy doing that)

It's been done on a budget, so will be looking towards the cheaper end of the scale in terms of hotels and perhaps some camping thown in for good measure.

However here's the interesting part, I quite fancy doing it in my Lotus Elise. I love driving, have driven through Poland and Lithuania a couple of years ago (In December time and it was not fun!) But I didn't find the roads too bad. Sure, they're not german autobahns by any standards, but still. This time is 2.5 years on and in summer.

Now, off to read what else there is to do and see in Poland. I'm not particulary taken by cities, so will find other things to do.

dukeYou won't be able to drive to Pripyat. You can drive until the exclusion zone, but no further. All vehicle traffic requires preauthorization.

An Elise in Romania and the Ukraine isn't a good idea. 90% of it is driving on bad roads, which isn't any fun. You probably already know that the Elise doesn't have the most robust suspension in the world. A realignment would be needed when you get back home.

You would be better off taking a robust 4 x 4 if you are going to Ukraine....I just came back from Kiev , and the road is still far from perfect despite them doing some work on it for the upcoming football....There are long sections where the top surface has been removed , and its not much fun driving on the stuff at more than 30 mph...

I went in a Jeep cherokee , and that just about stood up to the roads , your Lotus will shake itself to bits on some sections of the road to Kiev , and unless you are used to stock car racing , the manner of driving in Kiev will scare you half to death....

Cheonobyl is about 80 miles north of Kiev , and you can get there by driving around the blocked off roads through the forest , but not in a Lotus i am afraid....

Buy yourself a second hand petrol Jeep grand cherokee running on gas for about 700 quid , and you can go anywhere you like in a vehicle that is built to take a bit of rough....

I remember driving back to Poland in my new merc in 2008, when i hit the concrete slab A4 section (around 20 miles) coming from Berlin to Wroclaw I kept apologising to the car. I think thats not there anymore now.

You will be fine in Poland with the Lotus , although it might be wise to remove any skirting thats a bit close to the ground , but for Ukraine you would be better off taking a car you are not too worried about wrecking , and one that can take a bit of stick...

I drove on the main road from Dorohusk in Poland to Kiev , this is the main road , and is supposedly a motorway , but there are many sections where the surface is a potholed cart track , not at all pleasant to drive on , even in a Jeep...

It looks as though they have taken the top surface off to replace it , but when i drove on it there was no sign of anyone working on it , or any machinery , so god knows how long its going to remain in that state...?

The time before when i went to Ukraine i only went as far as Tarnopil , but i went on a Harley , not something i would want to do again...wrecked the suspension both front and rear , and shook the tailite off.... some of the lesser roads are just potholed mud tracks , and there are some huge holes in the towns...

Get yourself a cheap Jeep , or a Landrover discovery if you want to see Ukraine...

On the plus side its a nice country , with nice people , and nice food and drink , but expect delays at the border , and Ukrainian police that like to make a few euros out of you....

i drove there and back with 8 days in poland, i drove an astra 1.6 2 people out, 3 people and a dog back lol.

In total we used 300 pounds of petrol altogether which is not so back when your car is full of bags and crap lol.

well my sat nav took me from calais toward hanover then via berlin then south into poland to ustron. we left my house which is hertfordshire (north west london area) at 2.30 got the euro tunnel across and was driving through france for about 6.20 local time. i loved the drive to poland the little wc stops they have are awesome. when we crossed into poland we had to drive on that very very bump road lol, but after that is was good again, untill lol the road works, the sat nav tolds us to take the right of the motorway we did but it was a new junction not on the sat nav we should of take the one after it was pitch black and we were lost as **** LOL, well i thought we were, i called up my girl friend who was already there and spoke to her dad we knew where we were and came and got us, other the last part i had and awesome drive out there and would recommend it to anyone.

However lol the return trip i wish i had a gun to kill my self. we left ustron 6am poland time to reach calais for 23.30. got out on the motor hit germany doing 90mph was 3 hours or more a head of time and bam 3 hour traffic jam near berlin, i was pissed lol we were sat there sooooo long people were getting out there cars and get food and drink from there boot lol.

so we got past that and we still had about an hout spare then close to hanover again 2 hours road accident lol, tried to call up euro tunnel to change our ticket, ops forgot it was sunday and the line was closed lol. so well after getting through that traffic, we were behind so i pretty much dont the rest of the trip driving at about 110mph we got there with 4 minutes spare to check in, i had been driving in the car for 18 hours and still had to drive the hour or so home, i got someone else to do that bit lol, but i still loved doing it, we are talking about doing it again next year but staying in poland for a month or so.

We found taking the car on TransEuropaFerries between Ostend and Ramsgate to be a bit cheaper and pleasant. The sailing is twice as long as the Dover-Calais route, but there's less hassle, fewer passengers, and you drive a couple of hours less to London in total as you don't have to drive all the way to Calais/Boulogne. Can't stand the Tunnel!! Folkestone and Dover are the bottlenecks of Europe! That's our own personal experience: yours may be different.

do you drive on the weekends or on week days? which is best do you think?

Week days always busy, so I tend to leave 5am saturdays.Some people like to leave in the evening, to arrive in Dover, get a crossing and be in Calais in the morning. Big mistake as it keeps you awake when you would normally be sleeping, hence you arrive in France wanting a kip. If not, a few hours on the motorway and you feel shagged.

Arrived in PL one year on Sunday morning. It was like a ghost town, the best run through PL I ever had. Szczecin - Gdansk.

Not thinking of writing a book about this road trip are you ? lolThats my idea.

i was thinking of getting my full motorcycle liecence and ride all the way to poland on a motorbike lol

any of you done that?

Yep...guilty of that... I rode my Harley sporster all the way from Scarborough in Yorkshire to my home in Ostrowice Poland...Well not all the way , i took a ferry for the wet bit between Hull and Rotterdam...It was a nice ride....

It was a pretty easy trip really , but i am quite used to long distance travel anyways...In 2007 i drove an old diesal Landrover from Leeds to Belarus , then on to Moscow , then back to the UK via Latvia and Lithuania...I did Moscow to the UK almost non stop drove on redbull most of the way..an epic trip...

The ride on the Harley was uneventfull , apart from spraying petrol all over the rear wheel after the small plastic fuel can i was carrying slipped over the side of the seat and rubbed through on the rear tyre..! I was carrying this can due to the small silly fuel tank on a Harley sportster , only holds enough fuel for 120 miles , and when you go on reserve you have about 20 miles worth of fuel , so i was a bit worried about not finding a fuel station open when i reached Poland in the early hours... As it was there was no problem to find fuel...

From the UK to my home in Poland its about 700 miles of riding , and the Harley does about 60 miles to the gallon , so you can work out roughly how much it cost me , i can,t remember , and my brain does not do maths...! The only stops i made were for fuel , a cup of coffee now and then and a ciggie... The Harley is quite a nice machine for traveling long distances , but the suspension on a sportster is not that clever , so its not so good on rough roads , but most of the roads on the way to my place are not so bad...

Last year i rode the Harley to Tarnopil in Ukraine , won,t do that again , the roads are terrible , wrecked the suspension and shook off the tailite , not to mention losing a helmet and some baggage off the back... Next time i went to Ukraine i drove to Kiev , but went in a Jeep this time...